


Scars & Saunas

by Kiiratam



Category: RWBY
Genre: Bumbleby Week 2020 (RWBY), Canon Compliant, Discussed Blood & Injury, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24519685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiiratam/pseuds/Kiiratam
Summary: The Bees steal an hour of relaxation in Atlas, and talk about some of their less prominent scars.For BMBLB Week 2020, Day 2: Scars.Takes place around Volume 7, Chapter 5. (My BMBLB fic index)
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long
Comments: 4
Kudos: 122





	Scars & Saunas

"Oh, this one has a good story. This is where I was _grievously_ wounded by an implacable foe. Sometimes when it rains, the scar aches, and I wonder if she's still hunting me, waiting to finish me off." Yang leaned back against the sauna wall, with a broad grin on her face. She practically had her leg in Blake's lap, showing off the curving scar on her left thigh.

  
Blake rolled her eyes. "Yang, that one doesn't count. I know how you got that one."

  
"Sometimes, I can almost hear her voice."

  
"I couldn't stop apologizing all weekend." Though really, it been both of their faults. Blake had lost control of Gambol Shroud, Yang had attacked with a very low Aura...

  
"Hey, no harm done. I got a cool scar out of it." Yang put her leg down, which wasn't what Blake really _wanted_. But the reassurances were nice. "Your turn."

  
"Not until you _actually_ give me a scar story. "

  
"C'mon, Weiss is supposed to be the one hung up on rules." Yang stretched, holding onto her towel with one hand.

  
Blake tried to stare her friend down. It wasn't easy, especially when Yang had her eyes closed. And when she did a little wiggle at the apex of her stretch.

  
 _Focus_. Blake shifted her eyes back to Yang's face, before she could open her eyes again.

  
It wasn't like she didn't want to stare. But there was a big difference between taking a suitably subtle look at Yang, and just openly ogling her. Weiss would probably say it was a matter of propriety. Blake just wanted to be able to form coherent sentences. Especially when talking to Yang.

  
"Thought of a good one." Yang shifted on the bench, turning her back to Blake. "Give me a second..." She started shifting her towel, and Blake began a studious examination of the wooden paneling on the other side of the room. "Okay, ready." Yang was showing off her back, leaning forward a bit to show off her muscles. Or her scar tissue. "Left side, you should see a bunch of little puncture scars in a diagonal line. They're pretty old; not sure how faded they are."

  
Blake bent a bit closer, and saw them. She reached out a hand and traced out the line with her fingertip. "What happened?"

  
"Ruby threw me off the roof."

  
Yang was feeling _extra_ dramatic tonight, apparently. Blake decided to play along. "Yeah, that sounds like her. Did you eat her cookies?"

  
"I'm actually mostly serious."

  
"Uh huh."

  
"Okay, so it was less a throw, and more of a push. And it was only the roof of our shed. But it was onto a rake."

  
Blake winced. "Ouch."

  
"I was just lucky it missed my spine." Yang shrugged. "But really, Ruby was more upset about it than I was. _I_ was in shock. It didn't hurt at all. But Ruby was crying, and screaming for our dad. He though she was hurt, and I was taking a nap or something. But then he noticed me bleeding, and then it was all rushing to the hospital, and I was just confused why I didn't have to put my seat-belt on. Especially since we were going so fast. And Ruby was crying next to me with _her_ seat-belt on."

  
"Shock can be odd like that."

  
"Memory, too." Yang readjusted her towel, covering her back. "Your turn."

  
Blake tried to think of what was left that she actually wanted to share. It wasn't like it was unexpected. She'd proposed the game - if it really deserved to be called that - because she wanted to hear Yang talk about her childhood. And wanted to share some of her own. Just... a limited selection. Trying to deal with her past in a way that didn't hurt.

  
She raised her leg and set her foot on the bench next to Yang, turned so the blade of her foot faced upwards. "Right at the base of my toes."

  
Yang poked at the circular scar. "Tried to kick a sword?"

  
"Close. I was barefoot in a stream, looking for fish. And I sliced my foot open on a broken bottle."

  
"And then you wrestled the freshwater shark that came looking for you." Yang nodded, with a look of great sincerity.

  
"I was _nine_."

  
"So it thought you were easy prey!"

  
Rolling her eyes, Blake got on with her story. "And then I had to walk four kilometres back to camp."

  
Yang screwed up her face. "Your parents let you get four kilometres away? When you were nine?"

  
"Cops showed up. My parents had to move the camp to our fallback point." Blake looked down, playing with the hem of her towel. "And, uh, I may not have been where I said I was going to be."

  
"Oof. Yeah, I've lost Ruby once or twice. I can guess how they felt."

  
Blake pushed past the voice in her head telling her that she had given her parents a chance to practice their panicking before she _really_ ran away from home. "You _lost_ your sister?"

  
"In my defense, at least one of those times was when we were both teenagers. And she hadn't charged her scroll."

  
"And the other time?"

  
"We were at a fair, and I lost her in a crowd, so I just started yelling. Everyone else backed off, and Ruby found me." Yang blew out a breath. "It was a really tense couple of minutes, though."

  
Pulling her leg in, Blake slid closer to Yang. Getting as close as she could, when they were both hot, and sweaty, and needed ventilation space. "I can imagine."

  
"So, four kilometres, bleeding foot."

  
Blake nodded, picking the thread of her story back up. "And I didn't have any bandages with me, so I just put my socks and shoes back on. And started walking. It was a nice day, at least. Warm enough that the water felt nice, but not overwhelmingly hot. Anyway, my dad found me, and insisted on carrying me the last kilometre."

  
"I bet taking the sock off was _fun_."

  
"It actually wasn't that bad. There was too much blood for it to really stick."

  
Yang snorted. "Oh, yeah, that's very reassuring. Did you at least get some fish?"

  
"Yeah, mom broke out a can of tuna and made me eat the whole thing by myself."

  
"Bet you hated that."

  
Blake sighed happily. "It was the _worst_. There was this lemon sauce, and I remember thinking that I was actually hallucinating all of this, because it was just. So. Good." She savored her memories for a moment. "Your turn."

  
After a moment of thinking, Yang held out her hands towards Blake, palms down. "No, wait." She pulled her artificial hand back. "Okay, look right below my knuckles." Yang curled her hand into a fist a few times, and Blake could make out the slightly glossier texture of scar tissue on the back of her hand. "From my first wipe-out."

  
"On Bumblebee?" The words were out before Blake could stop to think about them.

  
But Yang just shook her head. "No, on a bicycle. I was going downhill, there was a patch of gravel, and I lost control. I was just a mess, elbows, knees, my palms _and_ , somehow, the back of my hands. I just picked up so many scars everywhere else that these are the only ones from that I can still find."

  
"Ouch."

  
"And somehow, the bike was not only perfectly fine-" Yang's grin was back. "-but the kickstand had flipped down, so it was sitting there. Fully upright. Waiting. Judging me."

  
Blake laughed.

  
"I swear, that thing had an active Aura. I did some really _stupid_ things with it, and _I_ was always the one who got hurt." Shaking her head, Yang said, "I was much more careful with Bumblebee. I guess I learned something."

  
_I'm not the only one trying to sort through my history. My pain. Our pain._

  
Taking Yang's hand between both of hers, Blake gave it a gentle squeeze.

  
_I'm not ready to talk about that. Not yet._

  
Clearing her throat, and making eye contact, Blake asked, "My turn?"

  
Yang nodded, tightening her grip on Blake's hand slightly.

  
Blake brushed Yang's fingertips over the pad of her index finger.

  
After a few moments of hesitation, Yang said, "I don't feel anything?"

  
"This one's more of a metaphysical scar. What you're not feeling was The Worst Papercut In The History Of Remnant."

  
Yang snorted, but didn't say anything.

  
"I'm serious! I was reading, I turned a page, and it's just instantly _soaked_ with blood. It was like a slasher movie victim, just squirting all over the place!" Blake paused, her memory jogged. "By the way, we need to see _Devouring Foundations_. You'll love it."

  
"Sure, in all the free time we have. Going to the sauna, we can fit into the schedule as a training cool-down. Kind of hard to justify a movie theater." Yang rolled her shoulders and groaned a bit. "Actually, can I get you to work on my right shoulder? Still adjusting to the new recoil."

  
Blake squeezed Yang's hand, and let it go. "Of course."

  
"How do you want me?"

  
_Just how you are. Trusting me. Next to me. Helping me._

  
"Right arm on the outside, sitting up." Blake waited for Yang to get into position, and started lightly exploring her shoulder. "Want to hear the rest of the papercut story?"

  
"As long as it has a happy ending."

  
Grinning, Blake said, "So I slammed the book shut, shoved my hand in my pocket, and left the library. And I never got caught."

  
Yang snorted, but whatever she was going to say was lost in a groan as Blake started her massage.

  
If she kept making noises like that, Blake was going to have a _lot_ of trouble concentrating.

  
But Blake was willing to risk that. "Your turn."


End file.
